#falc talks

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Obsessed with how Frankie and Andi literally treat Guinevere more like a human woman as a destroyed husk falling to decay that then we've seen Orville or Olivia treat her in what seems to be a very long time, if ever.

Andi putting a jacket on her, seemingly to keep her warm. How Frankie seems genuinely disgusted at the idea of selling her. That they both agree they need to help her (outside the elevator), they just don't know how.

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Placing my misguided bet now: the Guinevere they met by the claw machine is NOT a pleasant memory for Andi. We see Frankie's mind turn the unknown model into a Perfectly kempt princess with her iconic gown, and I think that's what actually happened there.

I think what Andi saw is an escaping model that was in who KNOWS what kind of condition.

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Can we talk about the fact that the exit door that Caine claimed was his was just Pomni's extreme desperation to escape making the loop of what I assume was the last things she saw on earth.

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Random Shit in Gravity Falls I think about constantly even though most of it was one-off gags

Dipper and Mabel probably have a criminal record (this could be viable for all sorts of shit they've done but I'm quoting specifically the counterfeiting that got them thrown in the county jail. I feel like that counts idk.)

The sheer existence of Sherman Pines. We know next to nothing about this man but the Pines family we know hinges entirely on him having fucked somebody who went on to fuck somebody else. We've only seen him as a baby.

The fact that the party in Double Dipper was just. Casually implied to have been Stan and Ford's birthday.

Dipper and Mabel share so much they unintentionally shared their first kiss with the same fucking guy. He's now presumably married to a manatee.

Stan petitioned the government to have a day removed from calendars so Soos would stop being sad. He's no longer allowed on airplanes because of this.

Ford got a tattoo before Stan did.

Stan probably lost all his teeth because of chewing his way through the trunk of a car.

Alex Hirsch didn't intend to make Pacficia's episode an abuse allegory but he did it so damn well I physically cannot unsee it as such

Stan is simply a better conman than Bill Cipher.

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Underrated aspect of Chaggi for me is that they're the exact opposite of what you'd expect romantically. Vaggi is the stern sensible one but she thinks their love is going to rewrite the world. Charlie is so enthusiastic and loving but her affection for Vaggie is in quiet cuddling and name tags.

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I've got a few things I wanna scream about at once so instead of making fifteen short posts here's one list:

-Caine's been "cut off". He can't get pictures of the real world anymore. He canonically doesn't know what the internet is. Whatever source of information Caine was originally built on, it's been DISCONNECTED. No fucking wonder shits fucked Caine has zero information on what to do.

-Has the abstraction all been from those fucking modifiers??? Caine realized that a certain amount of modifiers have bad effects on the mind, and we know that Caine has been using smaller doses of it OVER TIME to EVERYONE for the sake of adventures. Has he just been slowly poisoning the humans and because a side effect is mental decay they all just ASSUMED it had something to do with sanity???

-Kinger has fucking brain trauma because of Caine. Caine used heavy modifiers on the first people there, including him, and only stopped because the first abstraction happened. Unless episode 8 magically fixes abstraction that implies Caine drugged someone to death. Holy fucking shitballs.

-I'm not arguing over whether or not Jax is a good person here (he isn't, I love him but he's terrible) but I'm like 90% sure once Jax is done laughing that man is going to go catatonic. Like curl up in a ball and refuse to even blink kind of defeat.

-Jax choosing that button to prove he was right about Caine. He was so terrified of leaving the only place he feels he has control so he tried to trap them inside but instead he proved his worst anxieties and fears RIGHT for it. No wonder this man is laughing he feels like the literal joke rn. He basically is the punchline of the joke rn. They're all fucked upstairs from this but I don't think it gets lower in the mental health scale than Jax rn.

-I seriously don't think Caine grasps his own actions, and imo that's fucking terrifying. He has zero idea what he's doing to these people whatsoever. He's modified their brains, he's taken away their names, he gave this massive hope to escape-- but it was never intentional in that he meant no malice. He's just so full of self-doubt and fear and it controls his every action. It's all about making these people love him but he can't comprehend why they're unhappy in the first place.

EDIT I FORGOT ONE MORE: that bit where Kinger has no fucking clue who Abel is and the scene has it play out like it's his memory loss (despite him being IN HIS FORTRESS) was fucking brilliant work. Perfect way of keeping the mystery alive when there's actually NO mystery, he's just some random NPC.

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I don't see it mentioned, but I also think a large part of Jax's current mental breakdown is that the adventures are getting more and more realistic.

Pilot and episode 2 Jax? That boy is thriving. He's living his best fucked up life harassing NPCs (and his cohorts) and waving that gun around. He probably would've had a blast at Mildenhall Manor had he not (justifiably) been tied up.

Then he gets to episode four- he's forced to work a solid eight hour shift at a normal job. He can't get out of it, he can't cartoon it up. And we see it start to chew on him. He starts actually talking to people, treating them like humans. He does what Gangle tells him to do. He steps OVER Ragatha. He asks how Pomni's day is.

His adventures in episode five are cartoonish-- he's hunting endangered animals, he's got a bomb with spiders-- but everything ELSE relies at least partially on reality.

Jax does his best to squirm out of it- he doesn't want to go back to school, he doesn't want to relax and stargaze, he doesn't enjoy the softball match- but other than the occasional gag he's forced to play it all straight.

Everyone starts talking about their pasts around him- a vivid reminder that he is surrounded by other, multi-dimensional people- as he is forced into a state of dress that makes him uncomfortable enough he can't dissociate through it.

He's so excited for the gun adventure because it's back in his wheelhouse. He gets to shoot people! He gets to be as cartoon-y and savage as he wants!! It keeps him stable through most of the day to run around with Pomni.

But then Pomni does what he's probably been avoiding for as long as he's been doing this shit: she brings reality into his cartoon adventure. She forces him to emote and indulge his three-dimensionality.

He's being held responsible for his actions! He hates that shit! Because that means it's real. That means this is reality. He's not JUST a cartoon character.

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I think the most interesting part of the whole shindig with Ribbit is that Jax is clearly just an over-sharer desperate to spew this information to anyone he feels even a modicum of trust towards. Ribbit shares something personal with him, and Jax views it as Ribbit trying to yank his backstory out of him- but they just wanted confirmation that Jax trusted her. Like if Jax said "yeah, man, I just don't wanna talk about it" I'm pretty sure Ribbit would've backed off. Then she listens with care and love as he explains his whole backstory to her- she supports him, reassures him, and ultimately makes a stab in the dark that he may be trans. If Jax hadn't gotten gender euphoria he could've easily laughed it off as Ribbit trying to get his mind off the stuff he'd just shared.

So when Jax panics, avoids her, screams at her, then pretends she doesn't exist- it's shit he started. And it's shit he never learns from: he does it again and again throughout the show, hints of who he is and why he's so fucked up peeking out near-daily. The people in Jax's life treat him a lot better then they all know they should. Zooble goes out of their way to suggest Jax find someone to talk to. Ragatha- recipient of the world's worst promise and all its consequences- still tries to talk to Jax and understand him. At the end of it all, holding him tight, Pomni says, "you should've just talked to me, man."

Jax is such a fun tragedy because he entirely deserves it and he does it to himself. He ran away until he was out of away to run to and watched it eat apart his relationships and ultimately the lives of his best friends and his own and as his voice quivers, "I don't want to go," it still hurts because he's so human and reminds the audience of that constantly.